


In Memoriam

by virdant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Force Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gen, Ghosts, Jedi, Memory Related, Post-Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26005960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: There is a shipwreck on the surface of Jakku that is haunted—by grief, by despair, by a ghost who remembers the Jedi.Rey is a child abandoned on Jakku, but she knows that the Jedi are a myth. And myths aren't real.(But memories are.)
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 31
Kudos: 274





	In Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Im Gedenken an](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26055418) by [Countryheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Countryheart/pseuds/Countryheart)



> ghost month starts today, so here's a story about ghosts.
> 
> thank you so much to alanna who very helpfully read for me and reassured all of my doubts, of which there were many.

Most of the wrecks on Jakku had been picked over, especially the old ships, the ones from before the Empire. Scavengers had stripped even the steel from the hulls of once proud ships, dug deep into their bowels to pry the precious machinery out whole. Most ships were twisted skeletons fading away in the sand. Most ships, except one.

It was a Venator-class Star Destroyer, any markings on it long worn away by the sand and wind. Everybody who’s stepped into its shell agreed: of the chill, of the lingering unease, of infinite grief.

Haunted, they all agreed. Don’t go in. Those who did venture inside left, sobbing, shaking, broken by old grief. Don’t go in. Don’t even go near.

And then Rey stepped inside.

* * *

The man who stared at her was worn and fading at the edges, something deeply tired in his eyes. It was difficult to focus on him, easier to see the places where he blurred into the rest of the ship, the shifting edges of things.

Rey clutched at her staff and stared.

When she studied the man from the corner of her eyes, she could make out a torso, gloved hands, and a whisper of a voice that echoed around the hollow cavern of the ship.

Nobody came to this ship. Haunted, they said. They had never said that it was haunted by a ghost of a man, grief fading his edges. 

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man looked at her, and his voice was the whisper of the wind through the cracks of the hull.

_Good soldiers follow orders._

* * *

Rey did not take anything from the ship, but she went back to it, over and over. Despite the desert sun, there was always a chill within it, as if it were still in the cold of hyperspace. It was laid out the way ships usually were, bridges and power cells where she expected them. But it took longer to navigate, the hallways twisting and turning around her, as if she were caught in a maze.

And in the corner of her vision, there was the faded edges of a man—a soldier, he looked like. His back was always straight, no matter how deep the grief had settled within the bones of the ship.

He trailed after Rey as she wandered the ship, his steps echoing in the silence. He didn’t speak, just watched, and grief resonated down the corridors, familiar and aching. 

_I left him_ , whispered down the hall. _I left him for dead_.

 _I was left_ , Rey—abandoned on Jakku—involuntarily thought, _I was left here to die._

* * *

She should have stripped the ship down to its bones, ripped the hull off for scrap metal, torn out its innards and sold them for what she could get.

Instead, she buried her hands inside its guts, brushed away sand that had dug its way into its engines, and listened to its voice.

 _I need to find him_ , the engines rumbled. _I should have protected him._

The ship was old and scarred, worn away by time, but it could still fly. It would fly. And the man with the blurred edges was standing on the bridge, a scar curling around his eye, staring into the distance.

 _I left him_ , the engines rumbled, and the ship rose in the sky. _I left him to be forgotten._

And Rey stood on the bridge, her hands curling around the controls, and when the ship left Jakku, she was on it.

* * *

Space was cold, but it seemed to give the ghost substance, his edges sharp, his voice clear. He drifted through the ship, his footsteps louder and more clear.

Rey had no chance of flying the ship on her own—this was a ship meant for a crew of hundreds, if not thousands. But somehow the ship flew, and it flew steadily, away from Jakku.

But the engines rumbled beneath her, and when she pressed her cheek to the ground and asked, “Who do you need to find?” the ghost answered:

_General, General, General, General._

“Who?” Rey asked, again. “Where is he?”

The ship was old, but it flew. The ship should have been scavenged, but it had survived. And a voice whispered, like a promise, _I need to find him; I left him; General, General, General._

* * *

The more the ship flew, the more the ghost talked. 

All along the Outer Rim, the ghost whispered in the rumble of the engine, in the breath of the circulated air, in the creaks and moans of the restored ship. Here, the ghost whispered, here is where we fought and fought and fought. It was a war, the ghost whispered, and so many died, and we mourned, we mourned we mourned. What were we fighting for, the ghost whispered, bitter and tired. What were we fighting for, in the end? Was it worth it? All of the death?

And: _I left him, I left him for dead, I need to find him, I should have protected him, General, General._

They loved us, the ghost whispered, they loved us so deeply, and we murdered them in their beds.

“Who?” Rey asked, as the ship rumbled and creaked. “Who?”

 _Our Generals_ , the ghost whispered, _Our Commanders_ , he mourned, _Their children_ , he sobbed, and it was an apology and a condemnation at the same time.

* * *

This was what Rey knew, about Venator-class Star Destroyers. 

They were over a thousand meters long, with a Class 1.0 Hyperdrive and a backup Class 15 hyperdrive. They had a plethora of armaments to be scavenged, including 8 DBY-827 heavy turbolaser turrets, 2 Medium dual turbolaser cannons, and 4 heavy proton torpedo launchers. They hadn’t been used in decades.

This was what Rey did not know, about this ship.

It was named _The Negotiator_ , and the men on it had fought and died for the Republic. They had fought with the Jedi—with a Jedi named Obi-Wan Kenobi, who loved them and fought beside them. They fought because it was the right thing to do, because they had little other choice, but it had all been a trap, and they had died, one after another, one after another, until all that was left were ghosts.

The Jedi had gone to war, their arms twisted behind their backs, their hearts open and bared for everybody to see. They had fought and died and fought and died and for all of their mysticism, they were merely mortal, easily felled by blaster fire.

They led armies. They commanded power with the gesture of a hand. And they loved, so deeply that they were led to their deaths. The Jedi had commanded from Venator-class Star Destroyers, and when the Jedi were gone, there was no more need for the troops that had loved them, for the ships they had flown.

The ship whispered, and it was the ghost, who could see everything so clearly now that he was dead: _They led us, they fought beside us, they loved us, and we murdered them._

* * *

He would drink tea, a datapad in one hand, a cup in the other. He was always working, always striving for one more chance to save lives, to protect those under his charge, to give. They were all like this, every General, every Commander. They thought nothing of themselves and everything of what they could give. They came with their hands outspread in benediction, and we placed weapons in their hands and led them to their deaths.

He called himself a peacekeeper. He fought like fire, he flew like the wind, and he wanted, with all of his heart, for peace.

He would have thrived, in peace. He would have buried himself in archives and read everything he could get his hands on. He learned dozens of languages, and in peace he could have learned even more. He would have walked on planets and offered his heart to them, and in peace, they would have cherished it instead of stabbing it.

They all would have. They all should have.

But him. Obi-Wan Kenobi. He should have lived. If there was anything that I could have given, I would have given it so he could live.

 _I loved him_ , the ship’s engines rumbled. _I loved him_ , the ghost said. _I loved him._

He gave and gave, and in return, I ordered him shot.

* * *

Rey stood before the holotable on the main bridge, and when she concentrated, she could see him, flickering the same blue as a holoprojection, old and lined and worn in ways that only the desert could cause. He wore dark robes and his eyes were kind.

It flickered, on and off, the power cells eroded by sand and wind. The ship whispered underneath her feet, its engines rumbled, and the Jedi flickered, barely a memory, on and off, on and off.

And the ghost said, “His name was Obi-Wan.”

Rey saw the ghost from the corner of her eye. Saw him step up to the holotable with long practice. Saw him reach towards the projection.

“General,” the ghost said.

“Cody,” the projection replied. “What have you done?”

The ghost said, “I remembered.”

He was a ghost, and the ship was worn and creaking, but he remembered. He remembered the Jedi’s compassion, the Jedi’s care, the Jedi’s persistence in the face of adversity. He remembered Obi-Wan. He remembered. Every fragment of memory was another bolt, another rivet keeping the ship intact. He remembered the Jedi, so the Jedi existed.

The projection flickered. Off and on. Off and on.

“And now she will too.”

The projection flickered. On. 

“His name,” the ghost said, to Rey, “is Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was one of the best, but he was not the only Jedi in the galaxy. He was just one, but he loved us. They all loved us.”

“And you shot him,” Rey replied.

“I ordered him shot,” Cody said. “My brothers marched on their Temple.” He said, “It was murder.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” the projection said.

“Compassionate even in death,” Cody said, and his voice was a fond rumble. “Remember this, Rey. Remember that even after I ordered his death, even after my brothers murdered his family, even after he lost everything, he offers me compassion.”

“It’s the Jedi way,” Obi-Wan said.

“The Jedi don’t exist. They’re a myth,” Rey said, because she was a child abandoned on Jakku, but she knew that much.

And Obi-Wan looked at her, and he was gentle when he said, “Not a myth, Rey. But perhaps a memory.”

* * *

Rey clung to some memories.

She remembered that her parents had left her on Jakku. She remembered losing them. But she remembered them, and that meant that they were real.

Cody was a memory, and that meant that there had once been a war, that there had been soldiers who marched to their death, that they had been loved. Obi-Wan was a memory, and that meant that there had once been Jedi, that there had once been people who loved the galaxy so much that they marched to their deaths for it. 

The Jedi had been real.

The sands of Jakku were hot during the day, but the ship was dark and cold. The longer she spent in the ship, the more she knew: of what it meant to face death and to grieve loss, to hold it deep within her and accept it at the same time. She felt her pervasive fear that her parents had abandoned her to die, and how to look it in the eye and accept it instead of shying away. In the echoing emptiness of the ship, time seemed to slow, until it was only Rey, and the memories that remained.

There was a ghost named Cody who remembered the Jedi, so the Jedi were real, and a ghost named Obi-Wan who remembered what it meant to be Jedi, so their faith remained in the galaxy. And here, on this ship, they remained, one orbiting the other. They remembered each other, they remembered loving each other, and they remembered what it meant to fight and die for each other—and that meant that it had been real.

Memories made everything real. The war that the Empire sought to erase. The clones that were twisted beyond recognition. The Jedi that were eradicated. The ship creaked and rumbled, and in the noise it told a story that was almost forgotten, but had persisted. A story of Jedi who served the galaxy.

“I remember,” Cody said, steady at Obi-Wan’s side, “and now you will too.”

Obi-Wan knelt before her. “The Force is with you, Rey. Remember this: it is always with you.”

* * *

The pickings were lean, on Jakku. New ships were scavenged quickly, and old ships were picked apart, until all that was left were metal skeletons with their gaping bones jutting out of the desert. But there was a ship that nobody touched. It was haunted, they said, with ghosts and grief. With memories that should have been forgotten.

Rey had gone into the ship. Had pressed herself against the metal of the hull. Had listened to the whispered memories, to the ghosts of the dead.

For a long time, Rey remained where she laid, in the cool shade of the ship. It was quiet here, among the dead, but even in the silence, she could hear a whisper of a promise. It was a memory, of a time when there was peace, and a promise, that peace could come again. She closed her eyes and named it the Force, and she knew she would be a Jedi.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you make a joke about how ships aren't valid unless they have ghost marriages written for them and then adzusai shows up (again), and the next thing you know you are writing about haunted spaceships and memory.
> 
> i think sometimes about the cultural genocide of the jedi--that in addition to their murder, their reputation was destroyed, the memory of them forgotten. it's a horrible a cruel thing, and then i think about ghosts, and how ghosts are ways that we remember our dead, are a way that we hold onto what was lost, and the next thing you know i am writing about ships and memory and ghosts.
> 
> \--
> 
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